West farmers warn they need a month of wet weather

Farmers in the West have said they are concerned over recent low rainfall and "really need about a month of wet weather".

It follows the Environment Agency's confirmation it has been the driest start to spring for nearly 70 years.

Across the region, water companies have said they currently have no supply concerns but Thames Water said it was "not confident we won't have to restrict usage," if the prolonged dry weather continues.

Bath dairy farmer Hugh Padfield said grass he feeds his cows has dried up, adding: "We have to hope and pray that the heavens open."

The Met Office previously confirmed April 2025 saw the most sunshine in the UK since records began 115 years ago - with 47% more hours than the long-term average.

Mr Padfield, who runs the Bath Soft Cheese Company, said it has been such "incredibly dry weather" over the last couple of months the grass had stopped growing.

"It's a huge concern. There's no rain forecast at all," he said.

"We're having to send the cows out to outlying fields which we were going to cut for silage."

He said the clay soil on his land was "quite good at retaining the water" but once it dried out it "needs a lot of rain to absorb water again".

"What we're really needing is about a month of wet weather in the summer," he added.

The dry weather follows England's wettest 18-month period between October 2022 and March 2024, which caused damage to the soil, according the Department of Environment and Rural Affairs.

Phillip Vaux, a potato farmer from South Petherton, Somerset, said in January there was 150mm (6in) of rain followed in February by 65mm (2.5in) "in a 24 hour period" making it "very, very wet".

"We were thinking: 'How the Dickens are we ever going to get anything into the ground'?" he said.

"Now we're all worrying about where's the rain going to come from to make the crops grow. "

Angela Terry, a local environmental scientist and founder of the charity One Home, blames global warming for the "increasing extreme weather".

"We've gone from talking about what the impacts of what global warming might be to seeing them every season," she said.

"We're just boomeranging from too much rain to too little rain and it has real implications for all of us."

Water company bosses and the National Farmers' Union are calling on the government to do more to ensure the driest parts of the UK have secure water supplies.

Chris Weston from Thames Water, which covers Swindon and parts of North Wiltshire, told the Commons environment committee on Tuesday he was "confident we won't run out of water".

"I'm not confident we won't have to restrict usage," he added.

"That will depend on what the weather does and what rainfall happens between now and the summer."

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